2006 Mid-Term Elections

[chrisfan]

rockysigman said:

chrisfan said:

Lieberman's presence in this race undoubtedly takes more support away from the Republican than it does the Democrat. It is still a two way race between the same two guys - just with more voters than the primary.

I don't understand how that's undoubtable at all. Why shouldn't many of the Democrats who did vote for Lieberman in the primary vote for him again in the general election? He's likely to take quite a few votes away from Lamont.

They most likely will Rocky - but those votes weren't enough to put him over the top before. And the margin of votes that the Republican is polling with is so tiny that those votes aren't going to make a difference.

Next step, the Republican vote - I think we've established that it's small enough in the state to not make a great deal of difference.

So the swing is going to come from independents. It seems very logical to me that Lieberman could pick up enough of those to pull off a win. (and I'd guess Lieberman believes the same thing or else he wouldn't be in the race). I think the scenarios that have Lieberman winning in the general what he coudln't do in the primary are logical. But LaMont's victory was solid enough that I just don't see any of his supporters pealing off to support Lieberman at a large enough pace to give any Republican (let alone a crappy one) the win. On the contrary, I COULD see some of Lieberman's voters pealing off and supporting LaMont, because they'd want Lieberman as the nominee, but would not support his continuing on as an independent.

[strat-0]

I think Lieberman actually stands a good chance of winning. Don't underestimate that he's a household name with a long history. Chrisfan's pipsqueak factor shouldn't be dismissed. A lot of people who voted for Lamont in the guber could change their minds in the general when they see which way the wind is blowing. Everybody knows how Lieberman will vote in the Senate (his war stance and the "kiss of death" were an abberation, IMO, and his war stance was effectively overstated by Lamont.)

Even I don't believe in stating an drop-dead date for getting out of Iraq. Whether it's next week, next month, or next year, just do it when it can be done. Keep them guessing as long as possible - you never know when it could pay off, even if a bluff.

[shin]

Godwin's Law personified after only two posts, and in the most incoherent and bizarre way possible. You're nothing if not a batshit lunatic, Skvor.

[strat-0]

Oops, I guess they're both gubers, but one's the primary. Take that how you want...

[chrisfan]

Just to add one thing to my last post -- If Democrats make their main concern over a Lieberman independent candidacy the possibility of it giving a Republican a win there,they are making a MAJOR mistake. Things are already falling into place for the scenario Rocky and I discussed yesterday (with Hannity having an ulterior motive for endorsing Lieberman). The RNC was sending out e-mails yesterday declaring that the Democrats vote in Connecticut was proof that they're weak on national security. Cheney was making comments about that last night. Republicans see this as a huge opportunity - not for a win in Connecticut, but for exploiting a firm stand on the war from Democrats to be translated into being weak on defense. The security moms should be trotted out any time now. Democrats are looking at Connecticut as a battleground for Connecticut. But Republicans are looking at Connecticut as setting the state for a battleground in a bunc of states that don't end in "cut".

[shin]

I'm pretty sure the Democrats see this as stretching beyond Connecticut, CF.

[strat-0]

(Actually, neither are gubers - I'm a little brain dead today. Can't believe I got back from a break before anybody corrected me.)

[rockysigman]

I think the Republicans might be playing with fire by trying to spin that primary as some sort of indication that Democrats are weak on security. To claim that being against the war in Iraq is some sort of radical left position is to pin the label "radical left" on an awfully large (dare I say majority?) of voters. It's one thing to attack their plan to want to end the war, but to attack for labeling the war a mistake is likely to backfire, IMO.

[chrisfan]

Lamont's position however, is not merely being against the war. His position includes bringing troops home now. As Strat-o already pointed out, not everyone against the war gets behind that position.

[rockysigman]

Not everyone, sure, but I think the number of people who do want to withdraw troops now is a pretty significant number at this point--probably too large to effectively paint as radical.

[strat-0]

My point is not so much that we should bring troops home now, soon, or later, but that it's stupid to make an announcement that we are going to do so on X date. That is tactically, operationally, and strategically unsound and downright stupid. That is vital intelligence. We could be quietly getting ready to pull out in, say, a month, for a multitude of reasons, while some groups over there might at the same time be saying, "The US is not going to leave for years. We might as well cut a deal with the XYZs." Let the enemy know what you are doing in advance? So they can plan for it? That's crazy.

Not that I think we'll be leaving in a matter of months - probably more like years, but if the people who really know what's going on over there come to the conclusion that our presence is doing more harm than good (to us as well as the Iraqis), then we should bug the hell out. By the same token, if it appears we have achieved the most of our objective that we can, then just get the hell out. You just don't tip your hand to your enemies. Now, if everything were to come out rosy and all, sure, we could say we're pulling out and provide a timetable. But I don't see that happening in this world.

[kmc]

I am pretty sure Slate nailed it down this morning about why a Lamont victory might actually spell defeat for the Democrats in November. A quote:

"Lieberman's opponents are not entirely wrong about the war. The invasion of Iraq was, in ways that have since become hard to dispute, a terrible mistake. There were no weapons of mass destruction to be dismantled, we had no plan for occupying the country, and our troops remain there only to prevent the civil war we unleashed from turning into a bigger and more horrific civil war. Just about everyone now agrees that the sooner we find a way to withdraw, the better for us and for the Iraqis. The problem for the Democrats is that the anti-Lieberman insurgents go far beyond simply opposing Bush's faulty rationale for the war, his dishonest argumentation for it, and his incompetent execution of it. Many of them appear not to take the wider, global battle against Islamic fanaticism seriously. They see Iraq purely as a symptom of a cynical and politicized right-wing response to Sept. 11, as opposed to a tragic misstep in a bigger conflict. Substantively, this view indicates a fundamental misapprehension of the problem of terrorism. Politically, it points the way to perpetual Democratic defeat."

www.slate.com/id/2147395/

[shin]

kmc said:

I am pretty sure Slate nailed it down this morning about why a Lamont victory might actually spell defeat for the Democrats in November. A quote:

"Lieberman's opponents are not entirely wrong about the war. The invasion of Iraq was, in ways that have since become hard to dispute, a terrible mistake. There were no weapons of mass destruction to be dismantled, we had no plan for occupying the country, and our troops remain there only to prevent the civil war we unleashed from turning into a bigger and more horrific civil war. Just about everyone now agrees that the sooner we find a way to withdraw, the better for us and for the Iraqis. The problem for the Democrats is that the anti-Lieberman insurgents go far beyond simply opposing Bush's faulty rationale for the war, his dishonest argumentation for it, and his incompetent execution of it. Many of them appear not to take the wider, global battle against Islamic fanaticism seriously. They see Iraq purely as a symptom of a cynical and politicized right-wing response to Sept. 11, as opposed to a tragic misstep in a bigger conflict. Substantively, this view indicates a fundamental misapprehension of the problem of terrorism. Politically, it points the way to perpetual Democratic defeat."

www.slate.com/id/2147395/

A blogofascist moonbat responds:

Weisberg admits that Iraq is a terrible mistake just as Vietnam was, but opposing both of those wars makes Democrats look like wimps who don't understand islamofascismtotalitarianwhatever and that spells doom for the Party. Again, what this means is that if somebody wants to wage a cynical, immoral, useless war for no good reason, Democrats simply have to go along with it if they want to be taken seriously. Why that should be, I don't know. It seems to me that people who recognize when something is immoral, useless and stupid should be the ones taken seriously. But apparently that's not how this works.

(...)

First of all, there can be no debate that there was a "cynical and politicized right-wing response to Sept. 11." We've seen Karl Rove's power point presentation and we've been through two elections. The result of that is that we now have a government suffering from "cry wolf" syndrome in which nobody knows whether you can believe what they say. That is a very dangerous and stupid thing to do.

Most of us take the threat of Islamic fundamentalism --- indeed fundamentalism of all kinds --- far more seriously than the Republicans with their comic book and paint ball approach to complex problems. I think most of us feel that Bush has exacerbated the threat to such a degree that we are in vastly more danger today than we were before he undertook his absurd neo-congame. Again when you are actually right about something for some reason these elites consider you a fool and therefore you can't be taken seriously on national security matters. With that kind of thinking we'll be lucky to avoid blowing up the planet.

digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_digbysblog_archive.html#115519089333419286

[kmc]

Oh, I agree completely. I just know that, however anyone might logically justify being against the war, the powers that be will spin that opposition as weak on defense, a charge that's tough to shake off.

It's the reason why Democrats have to spin this as being against the war's execution, and not against the war itself. After all, you cannot expect anyone to successfully carry out a task they openly disdain (you know, like John Bolton in the UN - makes no sense).

[Mary]

I have a question for anyone, but especially for Democrats/left-leaning folks/people hoping the Dems will take back Congress in the fall. On Friday I went out to lunch with a few of my soon-to-be colleagues, and they were all discussing the local TN races. Of course the big race that is attracting national attention is the race for Bill Frist's vacated TN senate seat, and the big news is that a Democrat, Harold Ford Jr, stands a decent chance of getting elected (though the general consensus is still that the odds are against him) If Ford Jr does win, it would be a pretty stunning political moment, insofar as he would not only be a Democratic TN senator, but a black Democrat from Memphis and from the once notoriously corrupt Ford family (though by all accounts he is clean as a whistle himself). All well and good, but here's where stuff gets interesting --

The man is very, very, very conservative for a Democrat - or at least his rhetoric has been moving ever rightward in recent years. And I don't just mean rightward in the way that Hilary Clinton has been moving rightward on a few select trophy issues, but I mean rightward across the board on a number of a serious issues. In fact much of his campaign is explicitly based on his alleged independence from the Democratic Party and more conservative values than his counterparts in Washington. Now of course this plays well with most TN voters and is probably why he has a snowballs chance in hell of gettng elected here. So that brings me to the question I'm curious about:

How do you guys feel about this sort of thing - the Democrats running very conservative candidates in red states who make Lieberman look like Michael Moore? Do you think it's justifiable based on the important goal of getting Congress back into Democratic control, or do you think beyond a certain point it's a really objectionable sellout? I don't know that much about Harold Ford Jr yet, since I just moved here, but my colleagues almost unanimously disliked his conservatism - but were split on whether or not they'd actively support him anyway. (nearly everyone agreed that in the end they would at the very least vote for him, but many expressed discontent that he was the Democratic candidate they were stuck with) What sort of candidates should Democrats run in red states? How far in the direction of accommodationism is too far? When is the line crossed into sellout territory? I'd be curious to hear everyones' thoughts...

Cheers,
M